Disclaimer I do not own Hazbin hotel/helluva boss series, and I am not making any money by writing this story. Hope everyone that reads this enjoys it.
thoughts will be in italics
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Sera wasn't sure if she should be shocked or worried as she looked over the massive pile of paperwork, designs and planning Adam had shown her with his and Lute's plan on how to deal with hell in a less timely and more resource effective manner that would also make it even less likely for anyone in heaven to learn about the necessity of the extermination. If only he could be this active or serious with his regular duties. It would be amazing the work he could get done if he kept this mindset with things that didn't amuse him as much as his vendetta against his fallen descendants. In many ways his hate was rather petty as she knew it was more just one of the few ways, he thought he could hurt Lucifer if he could be as cruel and vindictive as possible during the exterminations. It did worry her sometimes, but Adam always seemed to cool down and mellow out after the exterminations and he was always on good terms with the winner when he travelled around heaven. He was rather abrasive with Emily but then they had entirely different mindsets when it came to how they viewed humanity as a whole.
Purgatory, a new realm to house the souls of sinners alongside hell. A realm designed to test the souls of those who fell for lesser crimes and dark deeds. They would be forced back into humanoid forms and their minds reset to test them a second time by giving them a second chance at life, though the realm itself would be designed to make sure that they were tested. Looking over the plans Adam had written up Sera had to admit that the whole idea while a big unknown seemed like a much more viable and long-term option compared to the yearly extermination. While working out at the moment, the human population of earth was growing and dying off in such a rate that Sera could tell that eventually a yearly event wouldn't be enough and the risk of the rest of heaven finding out would grow as well as Hell and its residents getting more and more willing to take the chance of all-out war against Heaven. This was a well thought up off ramp she could take that could allow her to push back the timing of the extermination and possibly give souls a second chance to reach paradise. She had at first not given the idea much thought as Adam while a diligent worker tended to be rather lazy though with him handing supervision of the project to his right-hand Lute she felt more comfortable placing her confidence in the project.
Building a new realm would be a big ask especially with it needing to be secret but she should be able to handle the task, though she wondered if it would be stable considering that while she would more than easily be able to design the earth like nature of it well enough, the parts that would need to be set up similar to hell had her worried as hell had formed all on its own upon Eve eating the apple. The nature of the realm was a mystery to her which had her a bit worried about the project, but Adam and Lute assured her that they would inform her immediately if anything seemed off and if things became too dangerous, they would pull the plug. Her decision made Sera wrote down some notes on a page and teleported it to Adam and Lute while she went to work on crafting the new realm.
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Lute looked at the paper in her hand a bit surprised at its contents. "She actually said yes?" Lute hadn't had Adam's confidence in Sera even entertaining the idea and yet here she was rather surprised that it looked like the project had been green lit.
"Come on don't sound so surprised Lute, it hurts that you thought I couldn't sell this to Sera." Adam faked being hurt while lute just had a look of seriously on her face at Adam's antics. "Oh, don't give me that look. you know you and I can do anything if we put our minds together and this will be the cherry on the top of your career and my afterlife. plus, I can't wait to see the look on Lucifers dumb face once he finds out."
"About that sir." there was a bit of a nervous look on her face though more unsure than nervous. "Sera wrote that no one is to know about this. we won't even be telling Lucifer about Purgatory. souls are just going to be moved and he will be told that the extermination will be set to a new and longer schedule."
"Oh come on seriously." Adam just looked bummed that he couldn't rub this into Lucifers face as the various ways he had planned to rub the Fallen's face into the metaphorical mud shattered in his mind. "Sera can be a real buzz kill. How am I supposed to get my entertainment now...?" Adam had slouched down a bit upset that his fun had been spoiled before he sat up an idea growing in his head while Lute had a bit of a worried look on her face knowing the trouble Adam could get up to when he got bored and how she often had to stop him or try to limit the damage.
"Sir whatever you are thinking, I would advise against it. we both know that Purgatory won't be a permanent plan until Sera is fully confident in it so, please be on your best behaviour at least until we don't have Sera looking over our shoulder."
Adam pouted a bit, but he knew better than to try and trick Lute. "Fine I promise to be on my best behaviour, and I'll keep my mouth shut."
Lute gave a sigh of relief as she left to go talk with Sera about what duties she would need to follow and if she would be getting any support from the exorcists or if she would just be working to keep the new realm out of sight and out of mind. unfortunately, lute should've been a bit more specific with Adam as he had agreed to be on his best behaviour and not cause any issues for Sera of gloat at lucifer. he hadn't promised not to get up to mischief no one would notice or know that he had caused or been involved in. Adam knew he would need to wait for Sera to finish building the new realm first but had a few ideas on how to get a win out of the situation even if he couldn't tell anyone. I can't tell anyone, but I can make this work out for me still. As long as play my cards right Sera won't find out and even if she does, she won't be able to trace it back to me. Being part of this project does give me a few privileges so even I can spin a few things to my benefit, I just need to wait for the right time to make my moves.
Sera looked at the new realm, a feeling of pride at how well it had turned out despite not knowing how half of it would need to work. If she was being honest with herself, she had been so worried that it would collapse in on itself as whenever she stopped maintaining it personally the realm always seemed to be trying to pull itself apart. She had even considered going to ask some of the other seraphim for help but was surprised by how the realm had seemed to stabilize itself by the time she had returned from her break. she had no idea what had caused it to stabilize but after some extensive tests and understanding it wouldn't fall apart and this was not a temporary situation, she felt it was best not to ask to many questions when things seemed to be working and she had no way of really knowing what fixed things or how to recreate it in a way that would satisfy her worries. A golden glow began to engulf her hand as a wave of her power flooded over the new realm breathing life into it and making sure it would be able to sustain its new residents.
Sera hesitated for a moment as she looked upon Purgatory, it looked so pure and vibrant reminding her so much of Eden before the apple before Lucifer in his foolishness brought ruin upon such a wonderous creation because he thought he knew better and helped birth such a ruinous realm as Hell. A small part of her still worried and wondered about why the realm had managed to fix itself in her absence from crafting it. From all previous evidence it should've fallen apart while she was gone and yet it had pulled itself together and become whole. For a moment she considered breaking her silence and calling in the other seraphim to look over the new realm to make sure it was safe and that everything was in working order, she quickly however decided against it knowing that questions would be asked, and she couldn't risk answering them without revealing why she was only doing this now and what she had been doing before. Its ok, everything looks fine and if any problems should arise Adam or Lute will inform me. After reassuring herself that everything would be fine and that if they weren't she would be given enough warning ahead of time to fix thing or end them before anything spiralled out of control she continued her work.
She watched as time seemed to speed up as eons passed in the blink of an eye as things started to be shaped, grow, die, crumble and build as an entire new world seemed to grow out of dust. she smiled a bit as she recalled the original crafting of earth and humanity. recalling the wonder of seeing new life take its first steps and how even when that paradise had been broken how they their creations had still fought and struggled to survive and while humanity had become a bit of a disappointment she was still happy to see souls managing to find their way to heaven and she hoped that this new realm would also lead to souls finding their way to the golden gates for Peter too great. while she was happy with how the realm had turned out and was now sure that it could sustain its future denizens now came the hard part.
once more she gathered divine power in her hands as a new flash of light seemed to erupt around her covering the entirety of the new realm. for a moment nothing happens, then single flashes of light followed by dozens and eventually hundreds and thousands as souls started to flood into the realm to populate it.
/
In hell no one knew what was happening as a massive golden flash seemed to engulf the realm scaring many yet the trumpets signalling the extermination weren't blaring and no giant golden hole in the sky left many confused as to what was happening. Suddenly though sinners started to disappear in pops of golden light entirely at random as new sinners, older sinners and even several overlords disappeared into thin air. For those that remained there was a sense of shock and terror at what had just happened, it was even worse for the remaining overlords as many felt the shattering of thousands of contracts as they lost their grips on souls they had held for years, souls had just vanished from hell, with no explanation and no warning and it was obvious to everyone in hell that heaven had done it. At the moment people were scared and for those in positions of power they rushed to the palace to seek answers from Lucifer who had watched the whole thing with a feeling of apathy knowing the headache he would be getting as he would be in so many talks.
Lucifer just felt pain he didn't want to deal with this not when his heart had been shattered yet again with yet another failure to add to the pile of the mess that was his eternal life. The last light in his life was gone, weeks earlier Charlie had disappeared, and he had no idea what had happened. He couldn't sense her at all, no spell he tried could show him what had happened or where his little angle was, and it broke him even more. Fate seemed to hate him, and he just felt like the universe had decided to make him its punching bag since he broke heavens rules. He had tried calling Lilith to know if Charlie was with her and yet she hadn't tried to contact him in any manner to tell him if she had Charlie or not. Charlie had to be with her mother though as she was the only one in Hell strong enough to take Charlie without him knowing and the only one capable of keeping her hidden from him. She was also the only one in hell besides the Seven and a few of the trustworthy Goetia who even knew of Charlies existence. First Charlie goes missing and now I must deal with this mess that Heaven has thrown at my face. For the sake of courtesy, they could've warned me ahead of time that they were going to pull a stunt like this. I could've been prepared but now I'm stuck dealing with all of this at once. Lucifer honestly didn't feel like he had the energy to deal with this as he hadn't left his home since Charlie had gone missing and now, he had to deal with people he barely liked and or tolerated.
It would be a few days before hell and its people realized just what heaven had done. How in such a short amount of time they had simply removed a third of hells sinner population with barely any effort. Initially there had been calls to go to war, to challenge heaven for such a brazen act yet everyone knew there wasn't anything they could do. For many souls there was a sense of despair at the very new and growing concept that the exterminations were a mercy, a lottery to give hell the feeling that it had a shot of not being under heavens grip. While many hell-born didn't care much, for sinners however this had left the Pride ring a mess as power vacuums led to all-out war while Overlords struggled to maintain their territory and power after their hold on the city had been shattered and their power greatly weakened. For Lucifer it was yet another sign that he simply was being given a new form of punishment he would have to deal with in the mess that was hell and how little heaven cared. For the Goetia this had thrown things into a mess as thousands of prophecies had been thrown into disarray or been ended with thousands of new ones popping up every day that they had to work in reinterpreting all over again. Their work over thousands of years had been erased, altered, and muddled or outright needed replacement and editing. The Seven were the least affected by all of this but they were also affected by how this affect Lucifer. Their king had been barely been involved in the running of Hell but every now and then he would show off why he was in charge and not to be messed with and it kept the Goetia and more ambitious sinners in line but now this mess had thrown a lot of things into question such as if Lucifer would just let the chaos consume Pride and even possibly spill over into the other rings if he stopped enforcing the seals and rules forbidding sinners to travel to the other rings. For now all the Seven could do was shut down the elevator linking the rings, the hell-born in Pride would all but be sacrificed to the madness but they couldn't risk the chaos spreading while they waited to see how Lucifer would handle things.